Annals of Surgery (Volume 17)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...surgeon of his time because the most skillful in anatomy. He himself claimed to have dissected several hundreds of cadavers, and was commonly believed to have also dissected living men that he might study the beatings of their hearts. He was ten years younger than Vigo, having been born in 1470. He was the son of a surgeon of Carpi named Faustino, was a schoolfellow with the young Duke of Carpi, was a pupil of Aldus Manutius, and later a friend of Benvenuto Cellini, with whose fiery temper he evidently had much in common. He was both a doctor of philosophy and of medicine, and was professor of Surgery at Bologna, and later went to Rome, where he enjoyed great fame and accumulated much wealth. He was proud and bold enough to refuse the request of the Pope himself that he should enter his service, disdainfully saying that he preferred to be at the service of every one who should seek him. At his death he left behind him the great fortume of 40,000 crowns. The last name that I shall mention is that of a Florentine physician, Antoine Benivieni, whose period of active practice extended from 1470 till his death in 1502. He was of noble family, and was an active participant in the mental activities and splendors of Florentine life during the most brilliant period of the Medicis. He enjoyed the friendship and instruction of Poliziano and Ficino, whose counsels he shared with the young English medical student, Linacre. He cultivated belles-lettres, philosophy and Greek, as well as the technical studies of his chosen profession. In his work he embraced the entire art of healing, but devoted himself more to surgery than was usual to the physicians of his time. Before his death he had collected into a manuscript volume a large number of personal clinical...